Craig is actually pretty non-standard from the perspective of Nicene orthodoxy. Somebody worth talking to from a non-standard Nicene perspective would be David Bentley Hart. Given your interests, you’d probably get more out of it. I think he’s a lot better philosopher as well. As for more standard Nicene interlocutors, I would be really interested to see you have a conversation with a Thomist like Thomas Joseph White. He’s a step up from the usual apologist.
Yeah, there's a lot of wild shit in analytic philosophy of religion. Peter Van Inwagen (hardly the worst offender) crosses his fingers for the "creator of all things, visible and invisible" line of the Creed because he thinks it doesn't adequately account for abstract objects.
As an Eastern Orthodox Christian convert from evangelical Christianity, and a lover of Saint Maximus the Confessor, I found that I agreed with you in your debate with William Ln., Craig about 89% of the time. It also struck me that you were more of a right hemisphere thinker as opposed to his left hemisphere, logic-chopping approach. You might consider reading Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom for help with your panentheistic approach with God’s energies throughout the cosmos. Might I also be so bold that you consider visiting an Orthodox Divine Liturgy? Pascha is this Saturday night and it’s well worth a look.
This elevation of certainty of beliefs and having “arrived” at a final set of beliefs is unfortunately common in evangelicalism. I think this sort of all-or-nothing thinking has led to a great deal of deconstruction and a sad lack of interfaith dialogue.
Hard to be neutral on who provided the stronger challenge.
I thought the atheists made some good points on the evidence for Christianity. Less so on the god of limited powers -- I don't think their points on fine-tuning etc really made sense.
WLC seemed to rely too much on wildly overstating how untenable your views are without any very compelling arguments I can recall.
You might enjoy reading Herbert McCabe, OP. He was an Irish Catholic in England and a Dominican, whose politics you would likely find extremely congenial (he was a committed socialist who wrote about both Marx and the evils of the west's Cold War foreign policy) and whose writings about theology and philosophy could productively challenge your belief in a limited god. He insisted on an apophatic conception of God, inspired equally by Aquinas and by Wittgenstein, and believed that this was the only way to secure a solution to the problem of evil.
And just to sweeten the deal, his style of writing is among the most compelling of any philosopher I've encountered (many of his essays are transcribed lectures, in fact), and it's entirely free of the jargon and browbeating often found among classical theists.
I believe in a discussion about God our little human words always fall short, limited as we are by our mortal and finite perspective. I'm not sure that I can conceive of what an all-power God truly is or is not much less put that into words.
There are many paths up a mountain some of them well worn and easy to find, others wild and yet un-tread. Anyone that defines a path for others is the one who needs to examine their own. It can be all to easy to see the one that you have walked as the only one that works.
If it is any comfort, I'd sure Brierley would have had the same "on the journey" perspective for a Mormon as well. Perhaps even a Unitarian. Orthodoxy is more important for some than others. What matters most, I think, is that we strive to follow God and become like Christ, have the humility to accept that many of our ideas are likely wrong (if only we knew which ones!), and trust that God will forgive us for our limitations and mistakes if we seek Him earnestly. In the Christian journey, none of us arrive this side of death: so it's not where you are on the path, but the destination we travel towards that matters.
Ord's view is based on Whitehead's view of God, which reflects Plato's view of the eternal forms. John Cobb, Jr. who recently died at the age of 99, wrote eloquently about his process understand of God as not "supernatural" but as present as a "lure" for beauty and moral actions in the "actual occasions" that constitute reality.
Thank-you for these words and for walking your own path with a receptive mind and heart. I tend to trust those who seek but am a bit cautious of those who have "found". It may be that I prefer the search over the certitude, the mystery over the dogma.
I found some of the Christian response to your position to be very condescending.
I think their rhetorical framing is used to gatekeep and subtly delegitimize different points of view.
If it become clear to them that you weren't on the journey towards traditional evangelical Christianity - and you weren't going to pivot in the future - I fear they would become less hospitable.
Maybe that’s a cynical reading, shaped by my own experience of leaving the faith.
I think you have every right to be a little irritated by the ‘still’ on a journey reference. Having been formally trained in a number of spiritual exercises in the Christian tradition, the idea that any disciple is not on a journey is itself deeply problematic , unreflective, and under estimates the need for a faith of practice, more than propositions, and the emotional education so clearly at the centre of life with the Bible. I think what really challenged your dialogue partners was the fact of your holding some positions lightly whilst nonetheless declaring commitment. Ie you have a disposition for accepting mystery might be necessary for faith, rather than an indicator of a lack of faith. And while I think you made a good case for the presence of philosophical conversation around and about Christianity from the outset, perhaps the harder critique is the tendency for analytic philosophy to be the only game in town. It clearly wasn’t the tool that God thought would be helpful in addressing the concerns of Job.
Hey, I'm a traditionalist Catholic, but look forward to your book and appreciate your Bayesian view. Thought you fared better on the physics show, but that Craig landed more blows. Just out of curiosity: have you thought about the Fall as an answer to the problem of evil? You believe that evil points to a God of limited powers, right? Maybe God is all-powerful, but being all-good, gave man free will. Its our original breaking of God's covenant, then, that resulted in the evils of our world. I guess that might only push the problem of evil back a step since God is all-knowing. On the other hand, Inwagen's idea of God willing a disjunction of possible outcomes may get out of this. Yujin Nagasawa's maximal God could be another route out too as He doesn't have to be omni, but has the greatest possible consistent set of power, knowledge and benevolence. You probably already know about it too, but John Hawthorne's take on fine-tuning and God is great: https://youtu.be/3Gl_w1yMgCg?feature=shared
I appreciate your openness with all of this, Philip. Christian thinkers like Craig are naturally wary of anything they consider heretical, because they rightly see the stakes as being high. But I imagine that's personally hard for you at times, so I admire how you've held yourself in spirited debates like that one.
I personally think your impotent god idea is logically and philosophically untenable, but the fact you're willing to discuss and debate it so openly is something we could do with far more of.
It makes sense to me that God is not all powerful. God will not force his will upon us. We need to open ourselves to the God we believe in.
If we believe in a vengeful and punishing God, then that will be our experience of God. If we believe in an unconditionally, loving and wise God, and that will be our experience of God and we will experience unconditionally, loving wisdom and guidance.
Craig is actually pretty non-standard from the perspective of Nicene orthodoxy. Somebody worth talking to from a non-standard Nicene perspective would be David Bentley Hart. Given your interests, you’d probably get more out of it. I think he’s a lot better philosopher as well. As for more standard Nicene interlocutors, I would be really interested to see you have a conversation with a Thomist like Thomas Joseph White. He’s a step up from the usual apologist.
Yeah, there's a lot of wild shit in analytic philosophy of religion. Peter Van Inwagen (hardly the worst offender) crosses his fingers for the "creator of all things, visible and invisible" line of the Creed because he thinks it doesn't adequately account for abstract objects.
love Bentley Hart!
As an Eastern Orthodox Christian convert from evangelical Christianity, and a lover of Saint Maximus the Confessor, I found that I agreed with you in your debate with William Ln., Craig about 89% of the time. It also struck me that you were more of a right hemisphere thinker as opposed to his left hemisphere, logic-chopping approach. You might consider reading Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom for help with your panentheistic approach with God’s energies throughout the cosmos. Might I also be so bold that you consider visiting an Orthodox Divine Liturgy? Pascha is this Saturday night and it’s well worth a look.
Thanks Nathan. You mean in Durham? I would love to and will do at some point. It's tricky with young kids.
This elevation of certainty of beliefs and having “arrived” at a final set of beliefs is unfortunately common in evangelicalism. I think this sort of all-or-nothing thinking has led to a great deal of deconstruction and a sad lack of interfaith dialogue.
Hard to be neutral on who provided the stronger challenge.
I thought the atheists made some good points on the evidence for Christianity. Less so on the god of limited powers -- I don't think their points on fine-tuning etc really made sense.
WLC seemed to rely too much on wildly overstating how untenable your views are without any very compelling arguments I can recall.
You might enjoy reading Herbert McCabe, OP. He was an Irish Catholic in England and a Dominican, whose politics you would likely find extremely congenial (he was a committed socialist who wrote about both Marx and the evils of the west's Cold War foreign policy) and whose writings about theology and philosophy could productively challenge your belief in a limited god. He insisted on an apophatic conception of God, inspired equally by Aquinas and by Wittgenstein, and believed that this was the only way to secure a solution to the problem of evil.
And just to sweeten the deal, his style of writing is among the most compelling of any philosopher I've encountered (many of his essays are transcribed lectures, in fact), and it's entirely free of the jargon and browbeating often found among classical theists.
thanks for the tip!
I believe in a discussion about God our little human words always fall short, limited as we are by our mortal and finite perspective. I'm not sure that I can conceive of what an all-power God truly is or is not much less put that into words.
There are many paths up a mountain some of them well worn and easy to find, others wild and yet un-tread. Anyone that defines a path for others is the one who needs to examine their own. It can be all to easy to see the one that you have walked as the only one that works.
Thanks for the read and enjoy your journey!
If it is any comfort, I'd sure Brierley would have had the same "on the journey" perspective for a Mormon as well. Perhaps even a Unitarian. Orthodoxy is more important for some than others. What matters most, I think, is that we strive to follow God and become like Christ, have the humility to accept that many of our ideas are likely wrong (if only we knew which ones!), and trust that God will forgive us for our limitations and mistakes if we seek Him earnestly. In the Christian journey, none of us arrive this side of death: so it's not where you are on the path, but the destination we travel towards that matters.
Ord's view is based on Whitehead's view of God, which reflects Plato's view of the eternal forms. John Cobb, Jr. who recently died at the age of 99, wrote eloquently about his process understand of God as not "supernatural" but as present as a "lure" for beauty and moral actions in the "actual occasions" that constitute reality.
Thank-you for these words and for walking your own path with a receptive mind and heart. I tend to trust those who seek but am a bit cautious of those who have "found". It may be that I prefer the search over the certitude, the mystery over the dogma.
I found some of the Christian response to your position to be very condescending.
I think their rhetorical framing is used to gatekeep and subtly delegitimize different points of view.
If it become clear to them that you weren't on the journey towards traditional evangelical Christianity - and you weren't going to pivot in the future - I fear they would become less hospitable.
Maybe that’s a cynical reading, shaped by my own experience of leaving the faith.
I think you have every right to be a little irritated by the ‘still’ on a journey reference. Having been formally trained in a number of spiritual exercises in the Christian tradition, the idea that any disciple is not on a journey is itself deeply problematic , unreflective, and under estimates the need for a faith of practice, more than propositions, and the emotional education so clearly at the centre of life with the Bible. I think what really challenged your dialogue partners was the fact of your holding some positions lightly whilst nonetheless declaring commitment. Ie you have a disposition for accepting mystery might be necessary for faith, rather than an indicator of a lack of faith. And while I think you made a good case for the presence of philosophical conversation around and about Christianity from the outset, perhaps the harder critique is the tendency for analytic philosophy to be the only game in town. It clearly wasn’t the tool that God thought would be helpful in addressing the concerns of Job.
Hey, I'm a traditionalist Catholic, but look forward to your book and appreciate your Bayesian view. Thought you fared better on the physics show, but that Craig landed more blows. Just out of curiosity: have you thought about the Fall as an answer to the problem of evil? You believe that evil points to a God of limited powers, right? Maybe God is all-powerful, but being all-good, gave man free will. Its our original breaking of God's covenant, then, that resulted in the evils of our world. I guess that might only push the problem of evil back a step since God is all-knowing. On the other hand, Inwagen's idea of God willing a disjunction of possible outcomes may get out of this. Yujin Nagasawa's maximal God could be another route out too as He doesn't have to be omni, but has the greatest possible consistent set of power, knowledge and benevolence. You probably already know about it too, but John Hawthorne's take on fine-tuning and God is great: https://youtu.be/3Gl_w1yMgCg?feature=shared
Please read David Bentley Hart as others have suggested, he has so much great material.
I love Bentley Hart!
I appreciate your openness with all of this, Philip. Christian thinkers like Craig are naturally wary of anything they consider heretical, because they rightly see the stakes as being high. But I imagine that's personally hard for you at times, so I admire how you've held yourself in spirited debates like that one.
I personally think your impotent god idea is logically and philosophically untenable, but the fact you're willing to discuss and debate it so openly is something we could do with far more of.
It makes sense to me that God is not all powerful. God will not force his will upon us. We need to open ourselves to the God we believe in.
If we believe in a vengeful and punishing God, then that will be our experience of God. If we believe in an unconditionally, loving and wise God, and that will be our experience of God and we will experience unconditionally, loving wisdom and guidance.